


Lay a Little Down and Let Me Get the Rest

by backwards_silver



Category: Homeland
Genre: Caracas, Carrie actually having a heart, PTSD, Season 3, Something that should've happened, Tin Man Is Down, lots of swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:40:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25312477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backwards_silver/pseuds/backwards_silver
Summary: Set post-Caracas sometime towards the end of Tin Man Is Down.In the scene with Julia, Quinn says he had no one to talk to that would actually care and all I could think was "Good gracious, he didn't even consider calling Carrie." And it broke my heart a bit.So here's me making it right, because the scene with Julia was deleted and somehow Carrie knew about Caracas in season 4.
Relationships: Carrie Mathison & Peter Quinn, Carrie Mathison/Peter Quinn
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	Lay a Little Down and Let Me Get the Rest

**Author's Note:**

> This my first fic!! So, please leave feedback of any kind! I'd love to hear it. I know I'm late to the party but this show just gives me so many ideas, and I can't let go of Carrie/Quinn. There's so much depth to their characters.

Quinn closed the door behind him and dropped his bags on the ground, letting out a breath he’d been holding for what felt like the last 24 hours. He was shaky, pacing across the room, breath coming in and out in shallow gasps. He felt more desperate than he’d felt in ages, tears brimming at his eyes when he hadn’t cried in what felt like forever. A child, a fucking child, laying in a pool of blood, shot point-blank in the head. He killed him, he killed a little boy, an innocent little boy just a few years older than his own son whom he’d never known. He imagined it being Johnny, lying there on the floor, shot and killed in mere seconds, from a bullet by his own hand. He was hyperventilating now, his stomach turning, he felt sick and it registered just in time to make it to the bathroom, vomiting harshly in the toilet, dry heaving from not eating a proper meal in nearly two days. His whole body felt limp, too shaky to even hold himself up and he slumped against the wall, heaving painful breaths. He wondered who would find the boy, how they’d bury him, who his mother was, what she’d think when she found out. 

He can’t get the image out of his head, a little boy, dressed in his pajamas, tiptoeing the hallway to find his dad only to be shot through a door before he even knew what hit him. His only fault being that he was born to a terrorist. It was minutes, maybe hours, before Quinn pulled himself off the floor, flushed the toilet, washed his mouth and face, drank some water. But before long it was happening again, his head was pounding in his ears, and he was hardly steady, like his brain was filled with fog, everything hazy and distant. He slipped on the tile, caught himself, but not before knocking his head against the edge of the counter. He was freezing, exhausted, lost in some reality that wasn’t entirely clear to him, like he was frozen in time. He curled up on the tile, shivering, staring into nothing, tears blurring his vision, running down his face onto the floor. He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, how much time passed until he drifted into blackness. His last thoughts were of Johnny, not Carlos, lying on the floor with a bullet in the head from Quinn’s own gun.

___

Carrie pulled up to the nondescript house at the address on her phone screen. The lights were out in the front of the house, all was quiet and undisturbed, like no one was even home, except for the car in the driveway. Black, rented, not much unlike her own. She verified the address one more time and climbed out of her car. She had tried calling Quinn five times after the cryptic, unfinished voicemail he left her six hours ago. He had called her while she was in the middle of a very unsatisfying hookup with a random guy she met in a liquor store, for fuck’s sake. She’d heard it an hour later and tried to call him, unsuccessfully. He sounded shaky, worn, so unlike his normal self, a bit broken. 

“Carrie…it’s Quinn. If you’ve got a minute…something happened…” He’d sighed, silent for a couple seconds, like he was disoriented. “Fuck…nevermind…” He’d hung up immediately after that, just as randomly as it began, it ended. She’d been about to settle into sleep when she saw the message but it snapped her out of her tiredness. It was so unlike him to be calling at all, much less wanting to talk, unless it was something work-related. He was all business, kept his cards close to his chest, and she’d never witnessed him like that, defeated, sounding completely shaken. 

After a couple tries to call him, she got worried, and three hours later she couldn’t sleep, still wondering what the hell it was all about. She left him yet another message before deciding to take matters into her own hands, knowing she wouldn’t rest until she figured it out. “Quinn, call me back, are you okay? What the fuck’s going on? Answer your damn phone!” She texted him along the same lines, too. 

He still hadn’t called or texted by the time she found his files in the agency’s archives, so she used her clearance to look for his most recent recent address and crossed her fingers, hoping he would still be living there. It occurred to her as she put on a t-shirt and jeans that she didn’t even know if Quinn was at his house. Last she’d heard he was on a mission in Caracas, something she hadn’t been briefed about or included in, given the clusterfuck of hearings she was currently roped into with the aftermath of the Langley bombing. 

She’d asked about him when she’d last seen Saul, wondering why Quinn had seemingly disappeared after Abu Nazir was killed. The last time she’d seen him, he was walking away from a conversation with Estes, looking conflicted, like he almost had something to say but didn’t. It struck her as odd, she would have thought this was a victory for him as much as the rest of them, but she didn’t give it much thought. Quinn was a complicated person, a shroud of mystery and unspoken questions surrounded him but she didn’t push. Her only fear shortly after was that he’d died in the bombing, the thought terrified her, actually, moreso than she thought it would. 

She asked about him when she first saw Saul again, trying to pry attention away from her suspiciously long absence, and also because she was genuinely scared he might have died. Saul had assured her that Quinn hadn’t even been in the building and she’d been relieved, but only thought about him a few weeks later when she noticed he was gone from Langley just as suddenly as he’d come into the operation. 

She wondered if maybe he was only on for the Brody assignment and nothing else, that he must have disappeared into whatever vague and secretive role he had in the agency, or as one of Dar Adal’s guys, as Virgil had told her. She still didn’t know why he’d been on the operation in the first place, but decided it wasn’t the most important thing at the moment, she was just glad he had been there, he was a damn good operative, sharp and quick, no beating around the bush or unnecessary pretense, and despite his occasional moments of being an asshole and the many spats they’d had throughout the mission, he was willing to hear her out, that much she’d appreciated about him. Deep down, she even respected him, something she couldn’t say for a lot of people.

Carrie walked up to the door of the house, listening for any signs of someone being there. It was dead silent, nothing except the sound of crickets chirping quietly, the wind slowly blowing in the night. She tried the door handle, fully expecting there to be a shit ton of anti intrusion devices and complicated locks. Instead, the door was unlocked. Worry settled in the pit of her stomach. Why the fuck would Quinn keep his doors unlocked? A black ops operative, a “security phobe” according to Max and Virgil, there was no way he’d just leave his door unlocked unless something was seriously wrong. 

She turned the handle and slowly opened the door, concerned now. What if someone broke in? What if Nazir’s men had found him, or someone worse? A man like Quinn undoubtedly had a lot of enemies and they were probably all formidable. She was panicking now, she stepped carefully through the living room, dimly lit by one lamp, casting a yellow glow across the room. Empty, no one to be seen. 

Fuck, she thought, what if he was hurt? What if he was about to ask for help or was worried something would happen and that’s why he had left her that message? what if she was too late? Fuck, fuck, fuck, Carrie thought, stepping into the hallway. She could see a light coming out of one of the rooms and rushed towards, worried what she might find. Quinn was lying on the bathroom floor, curled on his side, eyes closed, motionless. He looked pale, almost lifeless. Carrie swore, rushing to kneel next to him, checking for a pulse. “Quinn, fuck, Quinn, wake up! Can you hear me?” He sat up, groggily, looking around, confused, “Carrie, what the fuck?” His voice was tired, eyes red-rimmed and a bit puffy, like he’d been crying, or had an intense hangover. 

“What happened? Are you drunk?” Carrie sat back on her heels, letting go of his arms as he pushed himself up to sitting, disoriented, hands resting behind him for support. “What? No.” He shook his head, eyebrows furrowed in confusion, “How did you get in?” She stares for a second, trying to remember what the hell had been going on before that moment, thinking he was dead. “You door was unlocked,” She told him and he looked away for a second, trying to remember. He ran a hand over his face and she realizes how tired he looked, exhausted, worn down. “Why’d you come here?” He asked, eyes meeting hers again. “I got your voicemail,” She told him, and he tipped his head back with a sigh, “Fuck, I forgot about that,” He muttered, looking frustrated, but not at her, himself. 

“What happened, Quinn?” She asked him, realizing she still had no idea how he ended up passed out on the bathroom floor, looking like shit. “And what the fuck happened to your head, did you pass out?” She reached out and moved his hair a bit to get a better look at the cut on the side of his head. He pulled back and touched the wound, looking down with a frown at the blood on his fingers. He pushed himself up with unsteady legs, grabbing the counter for support. Carrie stood with him, questions still unanswered. “Quinn?!” She snapped again and he looked at her, tenseness rising to match her own. “I’m fine, Carrie. Sorry about the voicemail, I wasn’t…thinking.” His hand gestures to indicate that he didn’t mean to leave the message. He shook his head, walking out of the bathroom towards the bedroom, and Carrie followed him. 

“Quinn, you were passed out on the goddamn floor, you look like shit, something’s going on.” She stared at him expectantly as he turned around, expression looking drained and frustrated. “I just got back from a mission.” He said tersely, staring Carrie down like she would just take that answer and leave it. She noticed that he was still a bit shaky on his feet, holding onto the edge of the dresser to keep himself steady. His expression gave nothing away would probably never admit to it, but Carrie guessed he felt awful. “Jesus, Quinn, you need to sit down, you’re shaking.” He gave her a brief glance, almost a glare, but headed in that direction anyway. She moved to his side to help him to the bed but he got there first, before she could help. 

“Carrie, I’m fine, really, you can go.” His expression was tight, drawn, he wasn’t letting anything slip, she could tell. Well, shit, if he wanted to be stubborn, Carrie could play too. “I’m not. Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on.” She sat down on the bed a few inches from him, making her point and he drew in a breath, pissed off now. “Look, shit went wrong, I was in a fucked up place, okay? I’ll deal with it. Like I said, you can go. You have your own bullshit to worry about.” He was talking about the hearings, of course. It was a fairly good tactic, reminding someone of their own shit to avoid them worrying about yours, she had done it many a time herself, when she was in a really bad place and didn’t want anyone else to be involved. 

Thankfully she’d had her family, stubborn enough to keep pressing her even when she treated them like crap. Maybe it was her chance to be that for Quinn right now. Or at least try to, she was the first to admit she had a fucking low bar for empathy or patience, but she sure could fight and she was stubborn as hell. She said nothing, simply staring at him, waiting, he had to break eventually, right? She thought about saying something about being there for him like he was for her, or some cliche, meaningful shit like other people say, normal people. But she couldn’t, they’re not normal, she’s not normal. So instead she waited, waited for his walls to come down, knowing full well that if they were anything like her own it could be a while. 

Quinn didn’t look at Carrie, continuing to stare into the distance, elbows on his knees. He could feel her eyes on him, staring at him, waiting for an answer, apparently not taking “no” for an answer. Quinn wondered if she ever had taken “no” for an answer. He was well aware of her stubbornness, had spent the last few months being driven to insanity because of it, but he admired it, too, the way she fought for what she wanted. It felt like an eternity before he spoke, but it was only maybe a minute. His voice was soft, hesitant, “I killed a kid…Shot him…through a door.” 

He dared to look up, then, and the expression on her face was neutral, just the slightest hint of concern showing through, “Jesus, Quinn…” She muttered, sighing, “What happened?” He relived it in his mind, moment for moment, the sickening feeling back in his stomach, coldness creeping back through his veins.

“It was dark, I was there to take out his dad, the banker that helped fund the attack on Langley. It was supposed to be a car bomb…He had his kid with him so I followed him to his mansion.” He was silent for a few seconds, thinking. Carrie didn’t say a word, hesitant to break the spell, Quinn talking about something so personal, something that had probably haunted him since it happened. He started again, still not glancing at her, she could see it in his face, the tenseness of his body, he was reliving it. “Ten minute window to get past his guards and send confirmation of the kill. His son came looking for him, probably heard the shots. All I saw was the flashlight he was holding, thought he was a guard…I shot him, right in the head. He was dead by the time I came out.” Quinn’s voice is so soft it might as well be a whisper but Carrie’s staring, riveted, surprise written on her face but not shock, not disgust like he’d expected, like he felt for himself. 

He wasn’t even sure how much Carrie knew about his past or his job to begin with, much less how she felt to learn that he was on a mission solely to kill a man and resulted in a dead kid. He looked away, tense again, ready to bolt. He needed air, he felt nauseous and dizzy once more. Carrie put a hand on his wrist, noticing his tenseness. She’d felt it, too, the need to run when baring oneself to someone else. The feeling of being too raw, too vulnerable. It was newfound territory with Quinn, for sure. He’d never shared any vulnerability with her before, the most weak she’d seen him was lying shot in a hospital bed, tired and drugged up, probably in a lot of pain but tight-lipped about it, business as ever. Discharging himself with a snarky quip as he dressed in front of her. She knew that feeling, too. See, look, I’m not afraid of you. 

This time, though, there was no mouthy jokes, Quinn was seriously fucked up about this situation. Carrie wondered when the last time he’d opened up to someone was. He didn’t say anything, just looked at the hand on his arm and sighed, swallowing hard, swallowing down his emotions once more. Carrie knew it was her turn to say something but she didn’t know what to say, she’d killed a lot of people in her life, not by her own hand, but through her actions, somehow resulting in their death, whether she’d hoped it or not. It was part of a bigger picture, she always told herself, but after the Langley bombing she’d been a little shaken on that subject. “It wasn’t your fault, you didn’t know,” She sighed finally, giving his wrist a squeeze before bringing her hand back to her lap. She scooted a tiny bit closer to him on the bed, and he finally looked over, calmer now, more pliable. His eyes gave away how tired he was, and she felt it too, like being kicked when you’re down. 

She wondered how many things about him she didn’t even know, how much had happened to him in the last few months that never crossed her mind. But they were sitting here, now, in this moment, a shared understanding for a few seconds at least. Unspoken but known. “He had a whole life ahead of him.” He said, voice still low, just expressing the thoughts that were in his mind at the moment. His eyes were on hers, staring at her, but almost through her. He had a way of doing that, she’d noticed. A gaze so intense she felt almost uncomfortable underneath it. Something she rarely felt with anyone else. 

In response to his admission, Carrie shrugged, “Well, he could’ve grown up like his father.” She didn’t mean it to sound so flippant but it was the truth, in her mind. It happened all the time, she’d seen it especially often during her time in the middle east, young boys growing up to be terrorists just like their fathers, hatred and violence so ingrained in them from the time they were born. Quinn furrowed his brow, eyes searching her face like he was trying to understand what the hell that had to do with anything. “It’s true.” Carrie said again, standing up now, feeling the tension right back in the room where it was before. He opened and closed his mouth, about to say something but deciding against it. “He was nine years old.” He said finally, deathly still, like a warning. She frowned, unable to fathom how he couldn’t see the same harsh reality she saw in her own mind, the things she’d witnessed over the years. Maybe not even close to some of the horrors he’d seen…maybe even done…but how did he not see it, too? She was frustrated, “Stop beating yourself up for it, Quinn, it’s your job! He was a fucking terrorist and his son would have grown up to be one, too!” It came off far harsher than she’d meant it to, and like that, he snapped, stood up so fast it surprised her, a stare like fire in his eyes. “The fuck, Carrie?” He looked genuinely shocked. “You don’t know that! And if if you did, that doesn’t mean he deserved to die like a fucking criminal.” He spat, strangely still for how angry he was. 

Carrie wondered how he kept it all bottled up, she would be pacing and yelling right now if it were her, but his anger seemed to all course through him like a storm he wasn’t going to set free. She wondered what it’d be like if he did. He was glaring, she was glaring back, they were at a standstill, as usual. Usually he broke first, let her get her way. But this time was different, she didn’t have any particular agenda to pull him into, didn’t even know why she was here in the first place except that she had been really fucking worried about him. And now she was almost more concerned than she had been before. But the way he took all of that guilt on himself frustrated her. In this job, that kind of thinking would get you killed, guilt was just paralyzing, dwelling on the things that went wrong rarely led to anything good in her mind. 

“You have to stop feeling guilty about it, Quinn, it’s gonna kill you.” He didn’t respond, just stared right through her, and it pissed her off, “Don’t look at me like that, I’m the one who came here to check on you, for fuck’s sake.” She spat, knowing it was a low blow. “So sorry to be such a fucking bother, Carrie,” He scoffed, looking at her incredulously. “I didn’t ask you to come check on me. I told you, I’m fine, so you can get back to whatever the fuck you were doing and stop worrying about me.” He stormed out of the room and once again Carrie followed him, worried he might actually storm out of his own house to get her to leave him alone. He didn’t, instead he went to the kitchen, flicking the light on and grabbing a glass of water, his movements short and forced, anger bubbling over in him. 

“Why did you say you shouldn’t have called?” She asked, arms crossed, standing across from him, a challenge. “What do you mean?” He turned, frustration still evident, clearly not catching her drift. “Earlier, you said you shouldn’t have called me, why?” She’d been wondering it since he said it but her mind was elsewhere until now. He frowned, setting the glass down on the island in front of him, “Why not? It’s not your problem, I shouldn’t have called you.” He said it simply, like it was a known fact. It was her turn to be surprised, almost offended, “What, you think I wouldn’t care?” She asked, moving closer, oozing challenge. He regarded her for a few seconds before answering, “Carrie…you have a lot on your plate, taking time out for other people’s shit isn’t you.” He was blunt and it cut her a bit, but he wasn’t wrong. She’d been in her own world for so long it felt strange to think about someone else for a change, the only person she’d done that for in a long time was Brody, but he’d put it all on her anyway, she hadn’t just offered it of her own benevolence. 

This was different, though, she didn’t like knowing that Quinn thought she wouldn’t care to know if he was okay. Through all the fucked-up bullshit of her life and her job, there were a few good people that stood out and she was pretty sure Quinn was one of them. She wasn’t sure how to make him believe that she did, honest to goodness, have a heart to care for someone besides herself but it didn’t sit well with her that he felt that way. 

“Quinn…I do care.” She relented finally, sighing. “I know I’m not the best at showing it…but…” She couldn’t think of anything else to say, Quinn was staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face. She didn’t know whether he believed her or not but she’d at least tried, which was a lot to say coming from her. Eventually, he nodded, just a small one, never one for excessive communication, she knew. “Thank you…for coming…” He said quietly, intense stare never leaving her face. 

She gave a little smile, just a quirk of her lips, but he understood. They both understood. It was good, things were good. “You gonna be okay?” She asked and he nodded again. “Good.” She said. I don’t ever want to see you lying dead on the bathroom floor again. Her mind filled in for her. But he got the gist, even if he didn’t know how much she actually cared, at least he knew she did. She wasn’t even sure how to admit it to herself but maybe someday she’d get around to that. Someday, it was her favorite word, practically. “Goodnight.” She said softly, turning to leave. He watched her, the tiniest flicker of a smile crossed his face, if anything it was just a glimmer in his eyes, “Goodnight, Carrie.” 

They would be alright.


End file.
